I think the goverment suggestions are bit overly cautious for most things and make somethings super dry and overcooked.

Remember when you measure temp...and take meats out of the oven there's about a 5-10 deg rise in internal temp while it's resting. If you go 'by the book' with oven heat...you can end up with dry over cooked stuff that's risen to up to 10 degs over the resting temp.

Until recently the USDA's pork temps were way off base, holdovers from days when trichinosis was a serious problem and thermometers all had dials. Current recommendations include a small margin for safety knowing errors can *easily* occur when a thermometer is of the analog variety, out of calibration, or used improperly. Any health inspector will confirm that most thermometers are out of spec (and they see only the pros' tools who should know better).

To safely bend the rules, one must know all the issues in play. In a world where two thirds of poultry is contaminated with salmonella, campy or E. coli (and in many cases, all three, and, yes, that includes organic birds) better safe than so very, very sorry.

Incidentally, perhaps ironically (and hopefully interestingly) the cart lists "poultry parts" at 165F -- and that's true from a safety standpoint but legs and thighs should be cooked about 10 degrees higher from a culinary perspective.

This is what I meant by knowing all the issues in play before bending the rules. Chicken breasts, cooked to 147F sous vide, should be safe from most microorganisms due to time spent at temperature. Cooked in a skillet, a possible trip to the hospital.

I'm not sure how long it takes to kill marine parasites at 125F sous vide (if ever), but I'm certain they can survive that temperature in a skillet. And, again, sous vide circulators are very precise -- not something that can be said about most thermometers. Using fish as an example, it's technically safe at 140F, the USDA spec is 145 -- a *very* small margin for error.